Fidelity International to offer financial advice

Fidelity’s advisers will be able to recommend investments from its discretionary portfolio management service

Fidelity International has become the latest fund group to start offering financial advice. It has launched a new division, Fidelity Wealth Management, which will provide what is known as restricted advice across investments and retirement. This means it will only be allowed to provide advice on its own products and services.

The Fidelity FundsNetwork platform will form the cornerstone of the proposition, which houses its self-investment personal pension (Sipp), and other tax wrappers, including ISAs and Junior ISAs, was well as a general investment account.

Fidelity’s advisers will be able to recommend investments from its discretionary portfolio management service and its suites of risk-graded funds of funds in the Multi Asset Open, Asset Allocator Income ranges. They will also have access to some funds run by third-party asset managers, through the Select 50 range, which is available through its platform. This includes funds from Baillie Gifford, Lindsell Train, Artemis and BlackRock.

Down the line, the company said it plans to expand the services it offers to include financial planning, including estate and tax planning.

The launch of Fidelity Wealth Management is designed to tap into both the pensions freedoms and the so-called advice gap, the vast swathe of the UK population that is either unable able to afford or unwilling to pay for financial advice.

A survey by OpenMoney last August, found that only 10% of Brits had paid for financial advice in the last two years. Meanwhile, since 2015 individuals have had much greater flexibility over how they invest their pensions.

Simon Gibbons, head of UK wealth, personal investing at Fidelity International, said: There is a continued and growing need for financial advice services which help consumers to optimise their wealth as effectively as possible.